Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 15:26:40 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.4.2
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Last-modified: Thu, 08 Jun 1995 07:49:54 GMT
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<title> Kurt's Xmosaic UI comments
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<H1>Comments about XMosaic's User Interface</H1>

<H2>The Hotlist Interface</H2>
<UL>
<LI> 
Sometimes I find a link to what looks to be a real interesting site, but
it takes a while before it loads, perhaps because the network traffic is
currently hight.  Eventually I give up, but I'd like to remember the site
in case I want to try again in the future, but there's no way to add it to
the hotlist because I haven't actually ``visited'' the node yet.  <P>

<LI> 
Sometimes I have a hotlist window on the screen, but it's obscured by
other documents.  I hit <KBD>H</KBD>, or select hotlist from the window to get it to
show up, but since it's just beneath things, xmosaic doesn't do anything.
Would it be possible to send a raise event to this window under these
circumstances?  <P>
</UL>


<H2>Keyboard Shortcuts</H2>

<UL>
<LI> 
The emacs info pages have quicker navigational support than xmosaic
because they have more keyboard shortcuts.  For example, you can
immediately select a menu item by just hitting the number (for example, to
select the 2nd menu item, hit <KBD>2</KBD>).  Also, it has this idea of linear
sequencing of pages, so you can hit <KBD>n</KBD> to go to the next one in a series.  <P>

<LI> 
It seems like these concepts wouldn't be too difficult to adapt for
xmosaic.  Links could be numbered by putting a superscript above each one,
letting you know which key to push to follow.  The "next page" could be
defined by following the link immediately after the one that you chose to
get to the current page; this would be especially good for navigating
through a list of stuff.  <P>

</UL>

<H2>Miscellaneous Gripes</H2>

<UL>
<LI> 
Why do I have to select "Open URL..." instead of just typing a new URL
into the box on the screen.  Grrr....  I can't edit it either.  So much
for direct manipulation.  <P>

<LI> 
Sometimes when I do say "Open URL..." my mouse wanders outside the
little box and into the main mosaic window.  When I start typing all sorts
of random commands are executed.  This seems really bad; the keyboard
shortcuts should probably be disabled if a modal dialog box such as this
is put up.  <P>

<LI> We really need an HTML editor soon.  The emacs html-mode.el doesn't
really work well, especially if you're just trying to add html codes to an
existing document (like I had to do with this one).  <P>

<LI> 
While writing HTML documents, I tend to spend a lot of time making links.
This could definitely be made faster, especially if you could cut
and paste the URL from the document that you're currently looking at into
your emacs buffer.  It also might be nice to play with that dabbrev
package so see if it can be hacked to do some sort of automatic linking on
the fly.

</UL>

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<address>
<!WA0><A HREF="http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/kepart/index.html"> kepart@cs.washington.edu </A>
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